The Bay Parkade Redevelopment | 315, 271, 239m | 80, 69, 68fl | Proposed

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Vin

Not really. Would be nice to include that in the development.
They need to atone for that. Amen.

Holborn won't atone for jack. If they haven't even built Little Mountain as promised twenty years ago, they DGAF about a teeny little cornice.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Holborn won't atone for jack. If they haven't even built Little Mountain as promised twenty years ago, they DGAF about a teeny little cornice.

I mean they can say the same thing about COV blocking their rezoning attempts of the HBC Parkade site.

I don't see you guys whining about BPP which still hasn't developed all the land they bought in 1931.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

Little Mountain is under construction. No sure who you're referring to that Holborn has not paid. Do you mean they've yet to get sufficient pre-sales to start the rest of the condos?

Dunsmuir Hotel falling apart doesn't necessarily mean they are short on money. I'd argue it was a money saving decision. Thing was a money pit to renovate/ have occupied in the interim.

Legally I don't think you can prevent a landowner to rezone their property / apply for permits because they were slow to develop a piece of their land, let one building become derelict. The City will likely place Conditions for this site due to the end result of the Dunsmuir Hotel.

"Pay up front to cover the future costs", of what exactly, I don't understand. All "costs" are paid prior to Occupancy. Again, legally, I don't think you could ever require a developer of condos that the City deems "special" to pay "costs" earlier in the process than anyone else.

The Atmosphere project in Richmond appears to be folks suing eachother and I've yet to find how the City is paying for anything at this time if you could provide.

A Little Mountain primer:

After 15 Years, Little Mountain’s Housing Promise Still Looks Empty
More deadlines missed as frustrated citizens beg Vancouver councillors to ‘ramp up pressure on all parties.’
Jen St. Denis 10 Jul 2023

...Little Mountain is known as one of the most disappointing — and mysterious — public lands sales in B.C. history. In 2008, the BC Liberal government sold the social housing site to Holborn Group of Companies for $334 million. The existing 224 units of social housing were torn down in 2009, and residents were forced to move out of their community.

Holborn was then supposed to replace the social housing with new buildings, and fully develop the site with 1,400 units of market housing. For the B.C. government, the deal was supposed to yield $334 million to spend on building new social housing throughout the province.

For five years, David Chudnovsky, a former NDP MLA, fought to make the sale agreement between the B.C. government and Holborn public through a freedom of information request. When that sales agreement finally came to light in 2021, the province confirmed that Holborn had paid just $35 million of the $334-million sales price.

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Little Mountain: Big Money for a Developer, Big Questions for BC Liberals
read more
In 2013, the then-BC Liberal government approved a five-year extension on a $211-million loan given to Holborn, extending the interest-free loan to 2026 — a benefit worth about $9.5 million to the developer based on provincial borrowing costs at the time. The developer also received a low-interest loan for $88 million to complete the social housing.

Rezoning for the site, a complicated process that took several years, was completed in 2016....

....The revelation that Holborn had yet to pay the bulk of the purchase price to the government led to the 2021 memorandum of understanding between BC Housing, Holborn and the city, with all parties committing to move as fast as possible to complete the housing plan for the site.

Despite all the taxpayer-funded help, today the site is still an expanse of long grass and wildflowers. A chain-link fence is adorned with Holborn advertising banners that say, “Great Stories Take Time to Write.”

One 47-unit social housing building on the site was completed in 2015; another 62-unit building was supposed to be completed in winter 2022 but is still under construction today. BC Housing says that building will be completed by late 2023 or early 2024. Buium said it’s his understanding that Holborn is able to start pre-selling the condo units before the social housing is complete...(bold mine)

https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/07/10/L...n-15-Years-On/

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Vin

Looking forward to getting a new large indoor mall in downtown Vancouver that is similar to the TRX in Kuala Lumpur.

Where would that be?

[Tysonbrown]

https://www.biv.com/news/real-estate...ouver-10052406 I wouldn't give these guys another penny.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

I don't see you guys whining about BPP which still hasn't developed all the land they bought in 1931.

Several caveats. Did the province give BPP public money?
Was any of BP planned as social housing?
Were there other commercial uses planned for the former Capilano Estates?

AFAIK it's No to all the above. And they actually did develop most of it in a reasonable time frame, rather than sit on it until the eleventh hour.

[GenWhy?]

"....The revelation that Holborn had yet to pay the bulk of the purchase price to the government led to the 2021 memorandum of understanding between BC Housing, Holborn and the city, with all parties committing to move as fast as possible to complete the housing plan for the site."

I can't find anything that they are (were?) behind on their payments for the loan. Or that they purposely didn't pay the Province the full amount and are behind on their payments. I don't mind being proven wrong, but the Tyee article doesn't make it clear. It looks like they just have an interest-free loan.

If I was Holborn why would I repay an interest-free loan as quickly as possible if I didn't have to?

Again, this all points to bad deals and bad policies by the governments at the time. If the City has good policies today, then Holborn won't get away with all the bad stuff that's being mentioned here. It's business.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

If I was Holborn why would I repay an interest-free loan as quickly as possible if I didn't have to?

Again, this all points to bad deals and bad policies by the governments at the time. If the City has good policies today, then Holborn won't get away with all the bad stuff that's being mentioned here. It's business.

It was the Christy Clark government that gave them a sweetheart deal I believe.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

It was the Christy Clark government that gave them a sweetheart deal I believe.

The piece posted above says the deal dates back to 2008. Gordon Campbell (previously a property developer) was Premier then.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Changing City

The piece posted above says the deal dates back to 2008. Gordon Campbell (previously a property developer) was Premier then.

Correct! I thought it was later that the specific loan agreement happened, but it must have been at the time of sale. It might have made sense for a developer that was going to rebuild social housing, but there were no deadlines or penalties attached.

Campbell's real estate career was pretty limited. He was already Mayor by 1984.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Correct! I thought it was later that the specific loan agreement happened, but it must have been at the time of sale. It might have made sense for a developer that was going to rebuild social housing, but there were no deadlines or penalties attached.

Campbell's real estate career was pretty limited. He was already Mayor by 1984.

He worked for Marathon Real Estate from 1976 to 1981, when he founded his own company, Citycore Development Corporation. He was elected to Vancouver City Council in 1984 as a member of the NPA. He was then elected as mayor of Vancouver for three successive terms from 1986 to 1993.

As a former property developer, and as a former Mayor, he had to understand just how generous, and one-sided, the Little Mountain deal with Holborn was.

[Spr0ckets]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

This one isn’t a simple fantasy proposal from out of the blue.

Lots of those have come and gone, this has been in the works for a long time with communication back and forth with the city.

Is there a chance it could change? Of course! Countless projects that have had / have their own threads have changed form numerous times. If we are going to go by your logic then projects should only have their own thread after construction begins.

Not my logic.
I thought that was the standard on SSP.

But clearly there are lots of project proposal threads that are started for projects that haven't even been rezoned.
On the flip side, there's even more proposals in the general threads that don't have their own separate threads - and some of them not insignficant either.

For example, I can't find a separate thread for the Telus Boot project in Burnaby despite the fact that it's a bit farther ahead of this one in the application process for the Phase 1 towers, and it involves what will end up being some of the tallest towers in the Metro region.

But again, I totally get and understand the enthusiasm.

However given the developer involved and their track record - regardless of how long you say this has been in the works behind the scene (same as the previous iteration of this same site's project) - it would have made more sense (....for me, at least) to wait until there's something more concrete on the table, ....so to speak,...than just another proposal.

[Changing City]

Some thoughts related to the initial comments in the Downtown thread, and some posted here.

Holborn have obviously waited 20 years to submit an application that might get approved. Over the years they've contributed significantly to politicians, (although apparently couldn't find enough money for Canadian Tire tarps to stop the water getting in to Dunsmuir House). Now the viewcones that limited the site are no longer a factor, and demand for office space has dropped, so they can safely remove all of the office space from their proposal, leaving the more profitable condo towers, and a hotel.

The social housing tower they're offering to build on West Hastings is significant, but they've held that site for nearly as long, and haven't got round to building the market rental building there, so it gets that site off the books. At least some of the units (or the value) are not a net new CAC - they're required to address the SRO rooms that still existed until Dunsmuir House had to be demolished. Under the appropriate bylaw the levy could be $300,000 per room, on the 167 rooms, so nearly $50m could be considered to not really be part of the CAC offering.

If Council are inclined to approve this rezoning it will be important that Holborn can't repeat the Little Mountain debacle, and are required to hand over the social housing building before the occupancy permit is approved for the condo towers.

The current proposal is concerning, because they're suggesting that Phase 1 is the two condo towers and the social housing, with the hotel to follow. The base zoning here is 7 FSR and residential uses are only permitted after that density has been provided. But phase 1 doesn't have much non-residential space. It doesn't include any hotel space, no offices, and only a token amount of retail. So how can the City ensure that the hotel actually gets built? Holborn's history on Little Mountain suggests they're not averse to a bait and switch.

The retail offering is very disappointing. This isn't a 1,300,000 sq ft Kuala Lumba mall. They're proposing 64,000 sq ft of retail in total, about half under the two condo towers, and the rest presumably associated with the hotel part of the project (unless they're also including the retail in the Hastings tower in the total). That's probably not much more retail space than already exists under the Seymour parkade and along Georgia.

The design will no doubt evolve. The hotel design seems expensive because of the structural steel exo-skeleton that allows greater flexibility in interior design, because it eliminates a lot of columns, but it must add to the cost, even if the steel is sourced and fabricated offshore (which it seems likely would be the case).

Overall, for something so huge, it doesn't seem to offer nearly as much as it would seem to at first glance. As genwhy noted, the idea of successfully selling 1,500 condos at the price they'll need to in order that they can make any sort of profit in the current market is 'bold'. The idea that they might get a rezoning in a year, a DP in two more, and then sell enough to start construction in 2030 seems incredible.

(incredible /ĭn-krĕd′ə-bəl/ - adjective - So implausible as to elicit disbelief; unbelievable.)

[jollyburger]

I haven't found a clear answer on it but I think it's hard to say that the diagrid steel system will automatically make it more expensive.

[logan5]

The hotel (Van has a serious shortage) is the carrot they are using to try and convince the City to allow them to build such tall towers that intrude into the QE view cone, so I would want them to commit to the hotel first.

But aside from that, finding buyers for the condos should be relatively easy. The Downtown market is different from the rest of the Metro area, and the market will likely improve in a few years anyways. The condo towers would be sitting right on top of a shopping mall and an Expo Line station, with the Canada Line a block away.

The condos towers I don't see a problem with. Towers like that are already being built in Burnaby, but a 1000' hotel? It would seem that is something that gets scaled back, or Holborn attempts to change it to a hotel/condo tower, like 1151 Georgia, which Holborn built.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by logan5

The hotel (Van has a serious shortage) is the carrot they are using to try and convince the City to allow them to build such tall towers that intrude into the QE view cone, so I would want them to commit to the hotel first.

But aside from that, finding buyers for the condos should be relatively easy. The Downtown market is different from the rest of the Metro area, and the market will likely improve in a few years anyways. The condo towers would be sitting right on top of a shopping mall and an Expo Line station, with the Canada Line a block away.

The condos towers I don't see a problem with. Towers like that are already being built in Burnaby, but a 1000' hotel? It would seem that is something that gets scaled back, or Holborn attempts to change it to a hotel/condo tower, like 1151 Georgia, which Holborn built.

“Finding condo buyers should be no problem”?!

Did you miss the collapse of the project at 601 Pacific?

Remember, Holborn are the geniuses who managed to completely miss out on the huge run-up in Vancouver home prices that took place netween 2008-2018 with their Little Mountain holdings.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Vancouver's condo vacancy could jump to 60% this year. Again, either Holborn knows something the rest of us don't, or they're out to lunch.

[logan5]

You mean "jump by".

[Spr0ckets]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Vancouver's condo vacancy could jump to 60% this year. Again, either Holborn knows something the rest of us don't, or they're out to lunch.

And speaking of Rennie, -...i.e., people who actually know what's what in the real estate market and where the trendlines are headed - they just had big layoffs related to the current state of the market and the recession they see as coming.


Most significantly is their impression that.....

“The shifts we’re seeing in real estate aren’t temporary — they are structural. And yesterday is never coming back,” the company stated, pointing to a broader transformation in how real estate services are delivered and consumed."

So yeah,....either Holborn know something that not even the most reputed experts in the field know, or as you aptly put it, they're totally out to lunch.

It doesn't seem like we're heading to the type of market or market recovery that would support this kind of project.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by logan5

You mean "jump by".

Poh-tay-toe, poh-tah-toe - with the current market, Holborn needs to either pivot to rentals or end up with a thousand-foot tall bird sanctuary.